The Prince de Soubise stood at the window of the library of Applethorpe
alone; for Edward had made an excuse to leave him, not thinking himself
bound to play the host in a house which was not his, nor to act as the
entertainer of a man whom he had some good cause, as he thought, to
dislike. Soubise was then past forty, however, and he did not--as indeed
who does in middle life?--look upon trifles with the serious view which
one takes of them in earlier years. "Hasty and quick in quarrel" applies
to small as well as great things; and Heaven knows how much patience we
acquire each day by the mere habit of endurance. He received the young
man's apology in good part, then; and, while Edward Langdale went to
speak to every old servant and then to change his travel-stained dress,
he stood, as I have said, at the window and gazed forth upon a scene to
be viewed in no other country under the sky,--a home scene of English
life. It is probably of no age, of no time; for it is an impress of the
mind and character of the people. But I must not dwell upon it. The
chapter of descriptions has gone by. Soubise gazed out, compared that
which was before his eyes with that on which they might have rested in
his own country, admired what he saw, and perhaps, in the desponding
mood which certainly then affected him, felt sorry that France had not
so calm, so peaceful, and so happy a look as an English country-village.
After he had continued gazing for some ten minutes, upon the road before
him appeared an elderly man upon a fine stout horse, with clerical hat
and cassock turned up, and a servant following him on a still better
beast. They both rode fast; and, though the first sat his steed somewhat
after the fashion of a sack of wheat, it was clear that the saddle was
quite familiar to him, and the slouching shoulders and negligent air
were more the consequences of perfect ease and habit than of
awkwardness. The servant pulled back the gate: his master dashed
through, and in a moment after Dr. Winthorne was at the door.
The old footman ran forth to give him entrance, and a few words passed,
of which Soubise only heard the words, "Ned come back? Tell the dear
fellow to come down. A stranger? Well, we must see strangers." And the
door of the library opened.
Dr. Winthorne gazed at Soubise, and the prince at him, without any sign
of recognition as they approached each other. But suddenly the reverend
gentleman stopped, exclaiming, "God bless me! Monsieur Soubise! On my
life, sir, I am glad to see you. When did you come over? How fares it
with you? You are older by a good deal, but you look well. I am
right?--surely the Prince de Soubise?"
"The same, my good old friend," said the prince. "I am not surprised you
doubt, for I feel I am much changed. It is ten long years since we met,
and with me they have been stormy years."
"So I have heard," said the good doctor, "though news travels but slowly
in our poor country. But I have watched your noble struggles as closely
as I could; and I have felt great interest in them all, though
you--every one of you--made great mistakes. And now Rochelle is lost.
God help us! It is a sad case; but she could hold out no longer; and
that Mayor Guiton is a noble man."
"He is indeed," said Soubise; "and his character has risen in my opinion
by what has been told me by a young gentleman who came hither with
me----"
"Odds-my-life!" cried the old doctor, "my boy Ned!--Ned Langdale! I must
go, prince,--I must go and hug him. Sir, he is as fine a youth as ever
lived, and ought to be a great man. God send he may escape it! But I
have not seen him yet. Excuse me: I will be back in a minute. Make
yourself at home; make yourself at home. All shall be prepared for you
before you can say Amen."
With this somewhat unconnected speech, Dr. Winthorne left the room, and
in a few minutes returned with Edward Langdale, who allowed himself to
be introduced to the prince with cold ceremony. "He says," observed Dr.
Winthorne, "that somehow you have not treated him well. But we will talk
of that after supper. Every thing should be explained between all
people; but no explanation should take place fasting. The humors are
then in a bad condition; and, as there is no chance in my house of
people heating them by potations, we will just calmly regulate them by
wholesome food and moderate drink, and then have a clear understanding."
"I am perfectly unconscious----" said the prince; but the doctor cut him
short, exclaiming, "After supper, after supper, my lord! Your apartments
are quite ready. Let me conduct you."
The old clergyman and the Protestant prince retired from the room, and
Dr. Winthorne was nearly half an hour absent. When he returned, however,
he shook Edward once more warmly by the hand, saying, "Why, Ned, my boy,
you are grown quite a man. Heaven show us mercy! you have a beard an ell
long. But now tell me all that has happened to you. As to this man
up-stairs, he is a good man, a very good man,--hasty, but noble and
generous, steady in his friend-ships, true to his cause. There is some
mistake between you and him. He says your brother Richard wrote to him,
or visited him, or something, and he might have treated him with some
indignity; but he never saw or heard of you in his life till last night,
when he met you at an inn."
Edward smiled, saying, "He must have a short memory."
"Well, well," said Dr. Winthorne, "we will have it all after supper. Now
tell me every thing you have done and seen and suffered; for I doubt not
you have suffered too, my poor boy. We shall have plenty of time if this
prince takes as long to bedizen himself as he used to do. He was a
mighty fop in other years; but he has a more soldier-like look now.
Well, Ned, give me the whole story."
Edward Langdale willingly enough related succinctly what had befallen
him since he parted from the good doctor nearly two years before. There
was a good deal, indeed, he did not tell, for he knew that the
explanations required would be too long for the limited space before
him. Indeed, before even the abbreviated narrative was brought to a
close, the Prince de Soubise joined them, and they retired into another
chamber to supper.
The meal passed over in great cheerfulness; the wine was good, and of
that quality which parsons loved in those days, but all partook
moderately; and as soon as the servants had withdrawn--for supper at
that period of the world's history was served with very nearly the same
forms as dinner in the present times--Soubise bowed his head to Edward
Langdale, saying, in not very good English, "There must be some mistake
between us, sir. I should like to have it set right, for your father was
one of my dearest friends. We travelled long together with this worthy
minister; and I wish much to remove any thing like coldness between
myself and his son."
"I really do not know, Monsieur de Soubise," replied Edward, in French,
"what mistake there can be. But may I ask if in June of last year you
did not write a letter to your brother the Duc de Rohan, in which you
styled me an insolent varlet? The duke sent me the letter, and my eyes,
I think, cannot have deceived me."
"No, no!" cried Soubise. "Stay; let me remember. I applied that term,"
he continued, more slowly, "to Sir Richard Langdale, your father's
eldest son, who, as I have been told and as I have still reason to
believe, had robbed you of your property,--of your mother's as well as
your father's inheritance. To the latter he might have some claim: even
that is doubtful. To the former he had none."
"Unfortunately, by the laws of this country he had," said Edward. "But
all this is past and over, and----"
"Stay, stay," said Soubise, interrupting him. "It is not all over yet:
it is the very cause of my coming here. I was a witness, sir, to the
marriage-contract--or settlement, as you call it here, I
believe--between your father and your mother, by which it was agreed
that all the property she possessed, not only at the time, but which
might descend to her from her uncle, should belong to her and descend to
her children. In his last letter, when he thought himself dying, good
old Clement Tournon informed me that this very property had been taken
from you by him whom I may well call your base-born brother. Having done
all that I had to do, and been disappointed in all,--having seen the
noble Buckingham die at my feet, and borne the loss of Rochelle,--my
first business was to come on here to see right done if it could be
done."
"There, Edward! there!" said Dr. Winthorne. "I told you he was noble and
true."
"I doubted it not, my dear friend," replied Edward. "But still the words
his Highness used were somewhat galling."
"They never were applied to you, upon my honor," said the prince. "As
far as I recollect now,--for it was a time of great hurry and
confusion,--I had heard that Richard Langdale, whose whole history I
knew as well as my daily service, was at the court of France soliciting
some place from his Majesty. My brother wrote to me, mentioning only
Monsieur de Langdale. Probably it was to you he referred. Probably he
was deceived as well as myself, although he did not know so much of the
circumstances as I did. My cousin left his child with his dying breath
to my charge, enjoining me strictly to have her educated in the
Protestant faith, and never to suffer her to fall into the hands----"
"What!" exclaimed Dr. Winthorne, interrupting him,--"dear little
Lucette? How is the sweet child? where is she? Oh that I could see her
again for an hour! for she was an angel. Do you remember, Edward, that
you once had a little sister, and that when you were ill of fever she
disappeared?"
"Was that Lucette?" exclaimed Edward. "Remember her, my dear sir? Oh,
yes! But how can that be? her death killed my mother, I think. Lucette
my sister!" And he gazed down upon the table with a bewildered mind and
a chilly, painful feeling at the heart, such as he never had experienced
in life before. "I cannot comprehend," he added. "Lucette my sister! My
sister not dead!"
"No, no," said Dr. Winthorne. "Tell him all, my lord the prince. Lucette
is not your sister: she merely passed as such. Your father and your
mother took her in very early years to hide her from her Roman Catholic
relations in France, out of love and friendship for this noble
gentleman. Those relations were powerful here as well as in the
neighboring country; and at length they discovered where she was, but
Monsieur de Soubise came over and removed her, first to the town of
Brixham, where she remained some years, and thence to France. I had some
share in all this, too. But you are mistaken, my son, about your
mother's death. She grieved to lose her little pet, and wept often and
bitterly at her loss; but the origin of her illness was a terrible fire
which consumed your father's house when you were very young. Then,
exposure and injuries received before she could escape sowed the seeds
of that sad malady which, in this land of ours, like Death's gardener,
culls the sweetest and most beautiful flowers to decorate the grave."
"Then she is not my sister?" exclaimed Edward. "She is not dead! Thank
God for that!"
It might be difficult for those who heard it to know which he thanked
God for most; and the exclamation produced a slight smile upon the
countenance of Dr. Winthorne.
"Methinks, prince," he said, "this young man must have met Lucette
since. You dog, you told me nothing of that."
But the Prince de Soubise was very grave. "Let us not talk of that part
of the subject to-night," he said. "I fear there are painful
conclusions before us. But, Mr. Langdale, my friendship for your father
and my deep gratitude to your saintly mother make me most anxious to see
you reinstated in her fine property. Let us consult what can be done. I
am here ready to swear I signed the deed as witness with my own hand."
"That will not be sufficient," said Dr. Winthorne, with somewhat of a
smile on his countenance. "In this land we shall require the deed
itself. But let us ride over to-morrow to Buckley and see our old friend
Sykes, the hunch-backed attorney; for I cannot help thinking that he
knows something more than he will tell me. For the last six months he
has been keeping up the place at his own expense; for I dare say you
have heard, Edward, that no one has known any thing of Sir Richard for
more than twelve months. He draws no rents, sends over no orders. His
lawyer here has written and sent to Turin, but no intelligence whatever
can be procured; and many people think that he is dead."
"It is very strange," said the Prince de Soubise. "But I have no belief
in the report of his death. Most likely he is wandering somewhere, and
does not wish the place of his abode to be known. He was always very
eccentric."
"Then you know him, my lord?" said Edward, who had not lately mingled in
the conversation; for some words which had fallen from Soubise had
saddened him.
"I have not seen him for many years," replied the prince; "but even then
he was as strange a boy as I ever saw. There was insanity in the family
of his mother, and some people thought that the child would grow up an
idiot. It was not so, however. Though he was very strange, this
strangeness never reached to madness. Fits of moody gloom would come
upon him, and he often would not speak a word for hours. If he did, it
would be with a bitter and supercilious tone, very extraordinary in a
mere child. Then, again, at times he would fly into the most violent
fits of passion, and then sink into melancholy. The way I learned all
this is easily explained. At your father's request I took some charge of
him after his mother's death in the convent; but his behavior became so
bad that I had to relinquish the trust."
"You applied to him, a short time since," said Edward, "a somewhat hard
and unpleasant expression. You said that you might almost call him
base-born. Is it too much to ask that you would give me some information
on that point?"
"I know not well how to explain," replied Soubise, looking down
thoughtfully.
"His mother was a very light Italian woman, of a low, bad race. Your
father married her, beyond doubt, before this child was born; but it was
only just before, and that with half a dozen stilettos at his throat;
for they caught him alone with her and forced the marriage. Almost as
soon as it was over, he separated from her and she went into a
convent,--her relations spreading absurd stories that they had caused
the separation because your father was a Protestant. This gained them
some favor at the court of Rome, and one of them obtained advancement in
the Church, where, after leading a very dissolute life, he was struck
with remorse and retired into the most austere seclusion. This is nearly
all I know of the matter; but it was this knowledge of the young man's
birth, character, and connections which made me use the term 'insolent
varlet' which gave you so much offence. I pledge you my honor, however,
it was not intended for you; and I should not have applied it, probably,
to him, had I not been in haste and irritated at the moment."
"Then I hope, my good lord," replied Edward, "that, as the expression
was not applied to me, I may look upon all the sentiments and
resolutions contained in that letter as unsaid also?"
"Do not press me to-night," said Soubise, very gravely. "I am afraid if
I speak now my reply will pain you. The house of Rohan is a proud house,
and I have much to think of. Give me a few days for reflection, and I
will meet you fairly. But in the mean time let us be friends. Your
father was the companion of my youth and my most intimate associate;
your mother, now a saint in heaven, was an angel upon earth; and I would
fain have their son's regard."
As he spoke, he held out his hand to the young man, who took it
respectfully; and shortly after the prince retired to rest.